Judas Kiss
by I Genuinely Don't Know
Summary: In the chaos of Trost, Marco stumbles across a wounded Annie. He's not exactly a welcome visitor.


It's chaos.

The air is heavy with the stench of blood, the pavement under Marco's feet slippery with it; he can practically taste it, a sharp metallic tang, and he can't block out the screaming around him, warning calls and panicked shrieks. Despite the noise, he can hear his heartbeat, blood pounding in his ears as he runs blindly through the streets. He's lost the Titan following him, he thinks, but there's plenty more where that one came from. He doesn't know where Jean is, where Connie and Annie have gone; with any luck, they'll have followed the order to retreat and managed to get back over the Wall to safety. He tries, shooting a hook onto a building and pulling himself up, but as soon as he clears the roof he sees his way ahead blocked by two ten metre class Titans. They don't see him as he quickly disengages the gear and falls back to the street, rolling to break his fall and pressing himself against the wall of a house. He can't move until they do, doesn't want to risk being spotted.

Movement in the corner of his eye draws his attention to a window on the ground floor of a house on the other side of the street. A flash of blonde hair is just visible, and Marco almost passes out with relief.

_Annie_.

He glances around quickly, making sure the street is still clear, and then runs to the house, opening the door just enough to slip through the gap before closing it swiftly behind him. It's dark, no windows to light the narrow hallway, candles all extinguished. His boots stick to the stone floor; Marco glances down and hisses in surprise when the light seeping under the crack of the door reveals dark red patches on the stonework.

"Annie?" he calls softly, and hears a sharp intake of breath from the next room.

"Don't-" she replies, a choked sound to her voice, but Marco's already following the sound, pushing the door open.

He stops dead in his tracks.

Annie is crouched on the floor beside the window, jacket wadded up and pressed to her left arm- or rather, where her left arm used to be. Blood is oozing from the severed stump, seeping through the leather and staining her white shirt red. Blonde hair falls messily across her face, strands slipping out of the bun she keeps it in, some of them soaked in blood from where she's been leaning over the wound. Her sharp face is pale and drawn, and her eyes widen as she looks up to meet Marco's.

"Gods," Marco whispers, crossing the room and falling to his knees next to her. "Annie, you're okay, you'll be fine- what happened?" he asks urgently, prising the jacket from her hands to hold it there himself.

"Titan surprised me when I was trying to retreat. It's fine," she says fiercely, and Marco just looks at her, unable to keep the scepticism off of his face. "Marco, leave. Please."

"I'm not going to just leave you here. Gods' sake, you're missing an arm, Annie!"

"_Marco_," she snaps and contrary to her tone, her eyes look almost scared. "I'm asking you as a friend. Please leave me here. I'll be fine."

"If I leave you here, you'll bleed out," he hisses back. "Look, I can carry you, but there are Titans in the next street. We have to wait here a while, it'll be fine if we stay quiet…I'll keep the pressure on the wound- lie back, find something to support your legs-"

He's babbling, racking his brains to remember what Officer Shadis had taught them in their first-aid lessons, but not a whole lot is coming back- and he stops talking abruptly when Annie's wound suddenly _glows_.

He freezes on the spot, unable to take his eyes away as the glow- more like lightning, really, small sparks playing about the wound- spreads, becoming too blinding to look directly at; and in less than a minute, it fades again to reveal Annie's arm, missing a sleeve but fully intact.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Annie slowly turn her head to look at him.

"I asked you to leave," he hears her whisper, almost more to herself than anything.

Marco's mind is racing, trying to make sense of the situation.

_Trick of the light_, he thinks slightly hysterically, but he's seen that light before, twice in fact: when the Colossal Titan had appeared at Wall Rose day before, and shortly after that, when Eren had shifted.

Marco doesn't know what to do, just sits there next to Annie, staring blankly at her arm. Unnoticed, his fingers slacken around her jacket, letting it fall to the floor.

"You're a Titan," he says, voice sounding faint and far-away to his own ears.

"You weren't meant to find out." She doesn't sound surprised- almost resigned, if anything, dashing his desperate hopes that maybe she'd been like Eren, that she hadn't known herself.

"But you're- you're one of us!" he bursts out, climbing to his feet away from her, forgetting to keep his voice low to avoid attracting the Titans outside, as though he needs to worry about them now that he's in a _room _with one. "You're one of the 104th, why would you-"

"I can't explain," she says quietly, standing as well, barely up to his shoulder. "It's…it's complicated."

Marco takes a deep breath and nods. Tries to calm down. He _knows_ Annie, they've been comrades for three years now, he's shared food with her, told stupid jokes, been there through the blood and the sweat and the tears with her. He has to trust her.

"Okay. Okay, so…so we can work with this," he breathes, trying to convince himself. "I mean, we have Eren, and it was a shock at first, but everyone sort of accepted him, if we just tell them about you carefully-"

She interrupts him by leaning up and kissing him, just once, just softly.

Marco looks at her in surprise, one hand coming up to touch his lips almost unconsciously.

"I'm so sorry, Marco."

She's not looking at him, head lowered, bangs falling over her eyes.

"Annie," he says slowly, "what-"

And that's when Annie kicks him hard in the chest.

Marco falls back, too surprised by the sudden move to block her- not that he probably could have, he thinks as he hits the cold stone floor, gasping for breath; Annie was the best by a mile in their hand to hand training, and despite having both the height and weight advantage, he's never beaten her in a fight yet. He rolls to his feet, wincing at the sudden shooting pains in his ribs, looking up to see her adopt her fighting stance, hands raised defensively in front of her face, legs braced.

That's about when he realises how screwed he is.

"Annie, come on," he manages to choke out, one hand pressed against his side, the other raised in a placating gesture. "It's me, we're friends, come _on-_"

"You saw me," she says shakily. "You saw me, you _saw _me-" Her voice is rising, becoming more and more frantic- she launches another kick at his face; Marco manages to dodge, but it catches him on the shoulder instead, throwing him off balance. She presses her advantage, raining down sharp, precise blows that force him up against the wall. Marco feels his nose break as her curled fist makes contact, sending hot blood trickling down his face and blinding him momentarily as the pain causes white spots to shoot across his vision. He leans forward to avoid choking, raising his eyes to Annie's to keep her in his sights. That doesn't last as a third side kick sends his head cracking against the brickwork behind him, stunning him.

He slumps to the floor, and she pins him immediately, knee pressed in the small of his back, keeping his face pushed against the ground with one hand. With the other, she fumbles with the straps of his manoeuvre gear; when he blearily realises what she's doing through the throbbing pain in his head, Marco struggles, forcing himself out of his state of shock, because _no_, he cannot afford to lose that gear, all that keeps any of them alive in this bloodbath. Without it he's a sitting duck.

"Annie," he gasps out, but it's too late; she stands up, pulling his 3DMG away with her.

"I need it," is all she says. Marco twists to look at her, pushing himself up off the floor, ready to fight now that he has no other choice-

In one smooth motion, Annie draws one of her blades and presses it to his throat.

Marco freezes in place.

"Annie," he manages again, forcing the word out from his suddenly all-too-dry mouth, his voice thick as he tries to speak through the blood. "_Please_."

They stand like that for a long moment, Annie breathing hard, eyes wide and wild as she stares down at him, Marco on the floor, back against the wall, trying to plead with her silently.

Finally, Annie seems to come to a decision. She lowers the sword, and Marco can feel himself shaking in relief.

"Thank you-" he begins.

And then Annie takes a deep breath, throws back her head, and _screams_.

Marco shrinks back further against the wall instinctively, because that's not human, not even slightly; it sounds like an animal in distress. The sound seems to be amplified by the stonework in the room, echoing out into the twilight sky of Trost.

Annie stops screaming, the sound cutting off abruptly, hurriedly checking her Manoeuvre Gear before she drops to the floor and kisses him again, biting down, hard enough to make his lip bleed.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers against his lips, repeating it between every kiss, "I'm _so sorry,_ Marco, I asked you to leave, I-"

Marco doesn't reply, and Annie draws back, her lips red with his blood. She doesn't avoid his gaze, Marco notes, which he supposes bitterly is to her credit. He can see her expression, more vulnerable than he's ever seen her, worried and scared and-

And then the mask is back, her eyes becoming steely and cold again, her back straightening as she turns and leaves without a second backwards glance.

He hears the zip of her gear outside a minute later, and he rests his head against the wall, shutting his eyes. He's stranded. There's no way of climbing Wall Rose without Manoeuvre Gear- hell, he wouldn't even get two streets without it. His only hope would be if someone on his squad came looking for him, Jean maybe, but it's unlikely the brass would let them if they're already in the clear.

Marco kind of hopes they don't. He doesn't want anybody dying on his account.

He wonders what Annie will tell them.

He wonders if they'll find his body.

If there'll be anything left to find.

This is unfair, he thinks, and he knows that's such a stupidly childish thing to feel but he can't help it, this is _unfair_, he'd been so close, and for it to have been _Annie_-

He chokes out a muffled expletive, slamming his hand on the floor. It hurts like hell.

Marco wonders if it'll scare his sister away from joining. Hopes it will. Hopes the knowledge he at least died saving a comrade will ease the blow for his family.

He hopes Jean won't forget about him. That's selfish, he knows, he shouldn't want Jean to be hung up on him, should want him to move on with his life, but all he knows is that if he's going to die here, alone and scared, he damn well wants Jean Kirschstein to remember him. _Someone _to remember him. For it not to be a pointless, wasted life.

A couple of minutes pass after Annie's departure; nothing has happened, and Marco lets himself hope that maybe it had had no effect, that Annie had just been crazy-

And then he feels the building shake as the unmistakable footsteps of a Titan approach.

He makes a small, choked noise, practically a whimper, when they slow in front of the building he's in, pressing himself back against the wall, eyes squeezed shut, praying the childish idea of 'if I can't see it, it can't see me' would hold true.

It doesn't, of course.

The window explodes inwards as a giant hand smashes through it, showering Marco in broken shards of glass. He barely notices the myriad of new cuts he gets from it, too busy staring at the hand, which is groping blindly across the floor, searching for him. He scrambles backwards, but his back hits the wall almost immediately. His eyes flick around the room rapidly, searching for an exit, but the window is blocked by the Titan and the door is on the other side of the room, past the hand.

Not like he has a choice.

He tenses, ignoring the aches and pains from the beating and bracing his foot against the wall behind him.

One shot.

Marco's eyes follow the hand carefully, watching its every move. He's shaking violently, but he clenches his fists, trying to steady himself.

The hand shifts to explore the opposite corner of the room and Marco pushes off, launching himself forward. He staggers slightly as he hits the ground; he's up and running again immediately, but it's too slow, too slow.

Huge fingers close around his waist. It's like running into a brick wall. The air is knocked out of his lungs as he's lifted in the air and dragged backward through the window, remnants of the glass tearing at his jacket.

Then he's turned around and comes face to face with what grabbed him.

It's big, he registers vaguely. _Big _big, a 13 metre or so class by the looks of it. Not that he's really looking at much except the teeth.

For a moment, the titan just looks at him. Marco can't feel his heartbeat. He's not sure if that's because he's stopped breathing, or if it's just going too fast to even register anymore. He's heard that sometimes people feel immense calm in the face of impending death, but it doesn't look like he's going to be that lucky. He's hyperaware of every muscle in his body, and exactly how trapped they all are at this moment in time, whatever strength he possesses so easily negated by the titan's grip. There's an intense pain in his chest, a ball of anxiety so strong it's almost palpable.

_Somebody get me out of this please somebody anybody _Annie _come back please don't let this happen-_

The hand moves. Marco feels his ribs crack as the Titan's grip increases. His eyes are wide, unblinking, unable to look at anything else but the face in front of him.

_Everyone I'm sorry I messed this up oh gods please somebody remember me if nothing else please just-_

The mouth opens.

_Please-_

_Black_

* * *

_Inspired by a comic/headcanon I saw on tumblr that had Annie kissing Marco before his death. Thought it was kind of interesting, even without shipping them at all. I like the mystery around Marco's death so this is just a vague idea as to what could have happened- I don't think she killed him directly, but I do think she took the gear before he died.  
I'm really uncertain about this one, so comments would be appreciated!_


End file.
